Try Google's Educator Social Network for Fresh Ideas in Your Classroom

Google has recently created the Google for Educators discussion group at their Google For Educators website. You can read Google's K-12 Program Manager Cristin Frodella's blog post about the newly added discussion group here. Cristin's written some good information about this new service. The new discussion group is a great place for teachers to share feedback with Google about the discussion group, but more importantly build relationships within the education community. Teachers are able to use the discussion group as a social web portal to share ideas, classroom activities, or just reach out and meet fellow educators. And you thought Google was just about search!

Google is promoting this new discussion group as a tool to help build a social network for teachers, allowing everyone involved to share ideas in order to give students the best education possible. Google has added tools, activities, classroom posters, and a new RSS feed to the Infinite Thinking Machine - a Google-sponsored blog written for teachers by teachers. Google appears to be working hard to support teachers and their efforts to empower students, something that may seem unusual coming from the world's most popular search engine. But Google is dedicated to giving people access to all the information on the web, including educational tools, so after a closer look - this isn't that big of a stretch for the global search leader.

A quarterly newsletter is available as well as access to information on Google's K-12 Education initiatives. Information and links to the Infinite Thinking Machine Blog are also readily available. From the Google For Educators site:

The Infinite Thinking Machine (ITM) is a Google sponsored blog designed to help teachers and students thrive in the 21st century. Through an active blog, an Internet TV show, and other media resources, the ITM shares a "bazillion practical ideas" for turning the infinite universe of information into knowledge...

Make sure to stop by and check out this new resource. And for all of those loyal Direct Advantage customers out there, look for links to Google For Educators on our website coming soon.